The 5 winners of the Fiscal Cliff Business Awards are ...

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you'll get what you need.

That Rolling Stones chorus sums up what businesses got out of the fiscal cliff deal: They didn't get what they wanted: a grand bargain that puts into place a plan for stabilizing the national debt, simplifying the tax code and reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare. But they got what they needed: Tax cuts were extended for most Americans, meaning they'll still have money to spend.

Plus, Congress threw in some goodies for their favorite industries, ranging from Hollywood to NASCAR.

So, here are the winners of the first (and hopefully only) Fiscal Cliff Business Awards:

Small businesses

Folks who make more than $450,000 may not feel like winners today, because their taxes just went up. But on the whole, small businesses fared pretty well in this fiscal cliff deal. Hundreds of thousands of small business owners were spared higher income tax rates when the White House agreed to set the threshold for higher rates at $450,000 per household instead of $250,000, the level President Barack Obama wanted.

Plus, thousands of family-owned businesses were saved from having to worry about the estate tax when Congress kept the tax's exemption level at $5 million in assets, and agreed to adjust it every year for inflation. The estate rate was increased from 35 percent to 40 percent, but the $5 million exemption (or $10 million for couples) is more important to small businesses. Without action, the exemption would have fallen to $1 million -- it doesn't take much real estate or equipment to hit that level.

Small businesses that are thinking about expanding also will benefit from the deal, because it allows businesses to immediately expense up to $500,000 of capital expenditures, such as new equipment, instead of having to depreciate this cost of these purchases over time. Without action, the Section 179 expensing limit would have dropped to $25,000 this year.

Manufacturers and technology companies

Congress extended the research and development tax credit, which provides incentives for companies to do R&D in the U.S. The deal also made the credit retroactive for 2012 -- it expired at the end of 2011.

This, unfortunately, is not the first time this tax credit has expired only to be put back into place retroactively.

Businesses would rather see the R&D tax credit made permanent and strengthened -- they argue that other countries are providing more lucrative R&D tax breaks. But at least they got the tax credit restored.

Doctors

The fiscal cliff deal blocked a scheduled 26.5 percent reduction in reimbursements for physicians who care for Medicare patients. That's a win for doctors, but this "doc fix" only lasts a year. Doctors still face the threat of a Medicare reimbursement hit in 2014.

"Congress' work is not complete," said Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, president of the American Medical Association. "It has simply delayed this massive, unsustainable cut for one year. Over the next months, it must act to eliminate this ongoing problem once and for all."

Utilities

Things could have gone a lot worse for investors: Congress kept the capital gains and dividends rate at 15 percent for households earning below $450,000. Those rates increase to 20 percent for household above that threshold.

Without action, dividends would have been taxed at ordinary income tax rates -- 39.6 percent for wealthy Americans. That would have been bad news for companies, notably utilities, that offer dividends in order to attract investors and raise capital. The steady income that dividends provide loses its attractiveness when it's taxed at such a high rate.

“We are pleased that the final agreement recognizes that our tax code should not pick winners and losers –- that we should treat dividends and capital gains equally,” said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association for shareholder-owned electric companies.

Wind energy, Hollywood and NASCAR

The tax code is full of special breaks for specific industries, and this year Congress used the fiscal cliff deal as the vehicle for keeping these loopholes -- I mean tax incentives -- going.

Despite misgivings by some Republicans, the wind energy industry will continue to benefit from a production tax credit for projects that begin construction this year. Hollywood studios will continue to get tax breaks for domestic television and film production. NASCAR fans -- and drivers --won't have to worry about subpar speedways because Congress extended a tax break for "motorsports racing track facilities."